Brick and Mortar come together

There has been a recurring problem on this house restoration and it is finding the right mortar color for the brick foundation. The first contractor came close to getting the right color but now he’s gone. The current contractor and I had a miscommunciation on the color. I sent a sample away to see if a company could match some old mortar and now, a year after the restoration started we have found a color match!!!!! Yes, this is a historic moment. Now that we have the right color we can finish the front brick foundation and repair the many chimneys.

Here’s the right color courtesy of Grimm’s Building Materials. And here’s the recipe: We’re using a dye called Rainbow cement colors, the color is deep desert buff. We mix 1 cup dye, 18 shovels full of sand (we’re using special historic masonry sand that you can buy at Herrington’s in Hillsdale or in a pinch use bags of playsand you can get almost anywhere), 8 shovels of Iron Clad Mortar. So, that’s it. You want a buff mortar there’s your recipe.

Here’s the wrong color. We’ll be redoing this. This color is just regular sand and light gray mortar. I don’t like the color at all, it’s almost white. See those sections of missing shingles? There’s some rotten sills under there that is our next project to replace. We’re actually just going to patch the rotten parts. We’re going to relocate the gas line too around to the side of the house.